⁴ I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument.

Persuasion takes a person where his will may initially be reluctant. It can be a force for good or for not-so-good. Jesus was a master persuader in that many people were compelled by His teaching and life to follow Him. As many as 5000 followed Him at any given moment in His earthly ministry. He used healing, miraculous feedings, compelling stories and riveting teaching. His debates with the religious leaders were showcases for His superior reasoning abilities. Yes, Jesus was a very persuasive individual.

Carefully extending below the surface, though, His persuasion was found in the substance of doing the work the Father had given Him to do on the earth and the Holy Spirit’s empowering His life and ministry, bringing conviction of sin to the people. The entire Trinity was at work – no wonder He was persuasive! And it involved the work of God and the power of God and the love of God. Therefore, He used persuasion like a workman who uses everything in his power to accomplish his task.

Persuasion, however, can be used to influence people in a wrong direction. Paul wants us to be attuned when we are confronted with a persuasive teaching. Now it is not always easy because by its very nature a person who is deceived does not know he is being deceived. So we must on the first order admit to the very real possibility that we ourselves could be deceived, that is, deluded.

Proverbs counsels us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight” (Prov 3:5-6). We must admit that our own ability to understand can deceive us because of the deceptive nature of the sin problem in each of us. We must hold to an unreserved commitment to the revealed Word of God, the Scripture, which is our anchor in the face of deluding words.

For Christians, that means also an unreserved commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, who, as Paul asserted in the previous verses, is the source of all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Pre-Gnostic thinking sought after wisdom and knowledge as reserved for the spiritual elite, those with the secret mysterious knowledge of the Absolute Truth. But for the Christian, truth is found in Christ alone. He is the revelation of the mystery of God, not some esoteric religious experience. And He is available to anyone who believes, not the religious elite. We need to avoid anyone who teaches or speaks persuasively if they in anyway denigrate the full revelation of the deity of Jesus Christ.